Cellars: storage, or display?

Anything to do with Port.
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jdaw1
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Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by jdaw1 »

To my mind the ideal cellar is cold and slightly damp and dark and dusty, filled with bottles, old and ageing. Some bottles in OWCs, others in racks. The neck tags are visible, but not really the bottles.

Next turn to this video, by Sotheby’s, of William I. Koch, describing his collection. His cellar is lit, the bottles are on individual display, rooms are tastefully adorned with sculptures. His (massive) cellar is to be seen.

Storage, or display? Is this Port versus wine? Is this UK versus US? Is this lots of money versus less? What causes our very different visualisations of a cellar?
PhilW
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by PhilW »

I would suggest space, and to a lesser degree funding, would likely drive this. Assuming the owner values the wine (i.e. it's not just a trophy collection) then correct temperature and humidity would be primary, and I would expect that the lights would mostly be off, perhaps auto-dimmed/lit using proximity controls if not switched manually.

After that, if you have sufficient space then in addition to storage you may have room for display, and if you can afford the additional costs of good looking storage then why not. Correct conditions should still rule, however.

There could well be a US/UK typical difference here; whether it is true or not I am not sure, but it certainly seems that US properties are typically larger than their UK counterparts, and therefore would be more likely to have room for display as well as storage. Equally many properties in the UK are much older than those in the UK, so the dark cool cellar in smaller properties may be more common in the UK as a consequence.
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DRT
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by DRT »

PhilW wrote:I would suggest space, and to a lesser degree funding
I think the reverse order is more likely.

Funding buys the space, the wine, the architect, the fancy brickwork, the tiled flooring, the environment control, the statues, the 25 year old supermodel wife, the mistress(es), and the time available to enjoy all of the above.

Space is empty without funding to fill it with things.

I think this is simply the difference between someone who is seriously wealthy and the 99.9999% of the population who are not.
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jdaw1
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by jdaw1 »

DRT wrote:I think this is simply the difference between someone who is seriously wealthy and the 99.9999% of the population who are not.
DRT thinks the cause is money. Let’s test that hypothesis. Do any British “seriously wealthy” have such a display cellar? Do any American “seriously wealthy” who collect wine not have a display cellar?
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DRT
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:
DRT wrote:I think this is simply the difference between someone who is seriously wealthy and the 99.9999% of the population who are not.
DRT thinks the cause is money. Let’s test that hypothesis. Do any British “seriously wealthy” have such a display cellar? Do any American “seriously wealthy” who collect wine not have a display cellar?
Apologies, I did not answer the UK v USA question.

Ostentatious displays of wealth is, I believe, an affliction more likely to be suffered in the USA (or Russia or the far east) than by a Brit in the UK.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
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idj123
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by idj123 »

DRT wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:
DRT wrote:
Ostentatious displays of wealth is, I believe, an affliction more likely to be suffered in the USA (or Russia or the far east) than by a Brit in the UK.
Light blue touch paper and stand well back... :lol:
Glenn E.
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by Glenn E. »

idj123 wrote:
DRT wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:
DRT wrote:
Ostentatious displays of wealth is, I believe, an affliction more likely to be suffered in the USA (or Russia or the far east) than by a Brit in the UK.
Light blue touch paper and stand well back... :lol:
No need, he's right. Wealthy Americans are generally pretty proud of their wealth because they (generally, mistakenly) believe that they earned it on their own merits.

To the subject at hand, if I had the funding I would build a cellar that included at least a small area for display. The bulk of it would be for storage, but even that area would be nicely finished and easy to access.

I suspect that at least part of the UK/US difference is that here in the US we don't typically have underground storage available. At the very least, few if any true cellars. Any wine storage that we have typically must be constructed, and if you're going to take the time and money to build out someplace to store your wine you might as well make it nice.
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Alex Bridgeman
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

I would love a storage area that was part display as well as storage. Wile I wouldn't go to the same extreme as Bill Koch, if I had the funds and the space I would have a "cellar" that was well but gently lit (soft yellow lighting with one small area of daylight lighting for decanting) with a marble floor (perhaps a carpeted floor so I don't keep breaking the bottles I drop) and oak or chestnut storage areas. I would have shelving for the OWCs and 12 bottle capacity diagonal bins for loose bottle storage. I'd have slate bin labels that I could chalk onto and a lit area for displaying my (empty) trophy bottles. I would have enough space to be able to keep all my trophy bottles and not have to throw any away. A built in burner connected to mains gas for my port tongs would be nice, as would chilled water for cracking the glass when using the tongs.

I'd also figure out what to do with all the corks I have.

So what's stopping me from doing all this? Money and the other half. Now the children have left the family home I have the space, I could convert one of their rooms into a walk-in wine store. Or I could construct a dedicated "cellar" somewhere in the back garden. I just don't have the cash to spend on that sort of a project - and if I did then I'm sure that it would not be a shared priority!
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jdaw1
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Re: Cellars: storage, or display?

Post by jdaw1 »

Another video of that cellar, about the collections of claret and Burgundy.
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